Andrea's Rose Picture Tips

Andrea has sent me these two pictures of roses that she has painted in pastel pencils and asked me to point out any improvements she could make.Andrea has done a great job of these roses and I am sure that with practice she will get on well with the pastel pencil medium. The main problem here with the rose on the right is that too much base colour was applied before adding the stronger colours. What is needed is just the right amount of, in this case white, to be applied to the pastel paper allowing the stronger colours to register and glow with their natural colour. The Rosebud on the other hand looks better because the colours added were not intended to be a rich therefore the white base did not affect those colours too much.In the case of the rose on the right nothing can be done at this stage as it would mean rubbing out the whole rose and that would be a shame, so my advice would be to leave it as it is.The same problem exists with the leaves of this rose they appear much duller than the leaves of the rosebud. Again too much base colour has resulted in the stronger green colours being subdued by the over applied base colours.What I would suggest is that Andrea practices this technique on spare paper for once this is masters you would be amazed as how rich future paintings would be.The Rosebud Pastel Pencil exercise is a popular subject for those starting out in Pastel Pencils, watch the video tutorial by becoming a member.